Greek Texts & Translations

In their theory of dialectic most of them see fit to take as their starting-point the topic of voice. Now voice is a percussion of the air or the proper object of the sense of hearing, as Diogenes the Babylonian says in his handbook On Voice. While the voice or cry of an animal is just a percussion of air brought about by natural impulse, man's voice is articulate and, as Diogenes puts it, an utterance of reason, having the quality of coming to maturity at the age of fourteen. Furthermore, voice according to the Stoics is something corporeal : I may cite for this Archedemus in his treatise On Voice, Diogenes, Antipater and Chrysippus in the second book of his Physics. 7.1.56 For whatever produces an effect is body ; and voice, as it proceeds from those who utter it to those who hear it, does produce an effect. Reduced to writing, what was voice becomes a verbal expression, as "day"; so says Diogenes. A statement or proposition is speech that issues from the mind and signifies something, e.g. "It is day." Dialect (διά- λεκτος ) means a variety of speech which is stamped on one part of the Greek world as distinct from another, or on the Greeks as distinct from other races ; or, again, it means a form peculiar to some particular region, that is to say, it has a certain linguistic quality ; e.g. in Attic the word for "sea" is not θάλασσα but θάλαττα, and in Ionic "day" is not ἡμέρα but ἡμέρη.

Elements of language are the four-and-twenty letters. "Letter," however, has three meanings : (1) the particular sound or element of speech ; (2) its written symbol or character ; (3) its name, as Alpha is the name of the sound A. 7.1.57 Seven of the letters are vowels, a, e, ē i, o, u, ō, and six are mutes, b, g, d, k, p, t. There is a difference between voice and speech ; because, while voice may include mere noise, speech is always articulate. Speech again differs from a sentence or statement, because the latter always signifies something, whereas a spoken word, as for example βλίτυρι, may be unintelligible - which a sentence never is. And to frame a sentence is more than mere utterance, for while vocal sounds are uttered, things are meant, that is, are matters of discourse.

There are, as stated by Diogenes ^note in his treatise on Language and by Chrysippus, five parts of speech : proper name, common noun, verb, conjunction, article. To these Antipater in his work On Words and their Meaning adds another part, the "mean." ^note

A common noun or appellative is defined by Diogenes as part of a sentence signifying a common quality, e.g. man, horse ; whereas a name is a part of speech expressing a quality peculiar to an individual, e.g. Diogenes, Socrates. A verb is, according to Diogenes, a part of speech signifying an isolated predicate, or, as others ^notedefine it, an un-declined part of a sentence, signifying something that can be attached to one or more subjects, e.g. "I write," "I speak." A conjunction is an indeclinable part of speech, binding the various parts of a statement together ; and an article is a declinable part of speech, distinguishing the genders and numbers of nouns, e.g. ὁ, ἡ, τό, οἱ, αἱ, τά. ^note

There are five excellences of speech - pure Greek, lucidity, conciseness, appropriateness, distinction. By good Greek is meant language faultless in point of grammar and free from careless vulgarity. Lucidity is a style which presents the thought in a way easily understood ; conciseness a style that employs no more words than are necessary for setting forth the subject in hand ; appropriateness lies in a style akin to the subject ; distinction in the avoidance of colloquialism. Among vices of style barbarism is violation of the usage of Greeks of good standing ; while there is solecism when the sentence has an incongruous construction.

Posidonius in his treatise On Style defines a poetical phrase as one that is metrical or rhythmical, thus mechanically avoiding the character of prose ; an example of such rhythmical phrase is :

O mightiest earth, O sky, God's canopy. ^note

And if such poetical phraseology is significant and includes a portrayal or representation of things human and divine, it is poetry.

A term is, as stated by Antipater in his first book On Terms, a word which, when a sentence is analysed, is uttered with complete meaning ; or, according to Chrysippus in his book On Definitions, is a rendering back one's own. ^note Delineation is a statement which brings one to a knowledge of the subject in outline, or it may be called a definition which embodies the force of the definition proper in a simpler form. Genus (in logic) is the comprehension in one of a number of inseparable objects of thought : e.g. Animal ; for this includes all particular animals.